The Marauders' Era Year 5
by choco-molly'weasley
Summary: This is a story about our 4 favourite friends - James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew. This is the story of their 5th year, watch and wait as it unfolds with Lily Potter and Severus Snape involved, whether they want to be or not.
1. Chapter 1: Sirius for the summer

"James, Sirius Black is here!"

James Potter was a 15 year old boy, soon to attend his 5th year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. There was only one more week of the summer holidays, and he had not yet studied for his OWLs [ordinary wizarding levels].

Hearing this news, he jumped down from his broom, which he was hovering on around his room, and almost tumbled down the staircase he was going so fast. He turned a corner, into the living room. He laughed.

"Hey, Potter" his friend Sirius grinned, sprawled on the sofa on which it looked like his mother had been sitting, she had her arms folded and eyebrows raised, shaking her head in mock disappointment. Sirius seemed to have noticed, as he quickly switched to a more appropriate position. James' mother rolled her eyes in laughter and sat back down where she was sitting, the spot adjacent to hers taken by Sirius.

"Sirius will be spending the last week with us, he's been kicked out by his own mother" Mrs Potter explained, with a hint of disgust in her voice. She smiled kindly at Sirius, and then told the two boys to go up to James' room.

"Did your mum really kick you out?"

"Yeah. You wouldn't have wanted to be there, it got pretty ugly. Mum was screaming her head off, about how I don't pride my family, and Reg was crying, she threatened to hex us both if I didn't get lost at once. I would have hexed her straight back, mind you, but I didn't want my brother dragged into it. But, anyway, we have matters to discuss."

"We do?"

"We do. I got an owl from Remus yesterday, he said that our animagi potion will be ready soon. He's been keeping an eye on it all summer for us, and it's started to bubble. It should be ready by Christmas, probably."

James beamed at his friend. He, Sirius, and their friend Peter had been secretly taking the steps to becoming animagi, with the help of their friend Remus, who happened to be a werewolf. They were doing this so that Remus didn't feel alone when he was in his wolf form. Once a month, they were planning, when Remus went into his hiding place in the Shrieking Shack, his three friends would also be there to accompany him, without being in too much danger. It all depended on their animal. He was slightly unsettled by the thought that Remus sent a letter to Sirius but not him, but then again, he had always been a closer friend to Sirius than he was to him or Peter, so he shrugged it off.

After James and Sirius had caught up on each other's' summer, James was struck by a thought

"Hey, Sirius, did you bring your trunk and stuff?" James asked, hoping he had, as he did _not _want to have to share his underwear with his friend.

"Yeah, I left it all in the kitchen, go and get it will you?"

"No. It's your stuff!" James protested.

"It's your house" Sirius reasoned with a smirk.

James couldn't think of a come-back, so he grunted and slid down off the bed to bring up Sirius' belongings. He could hear him sniggering as he reached the stairs.

"Shut up!" he snapped at him. But this only made him laugh harder.

He dragged himself down the stairs huffily, stifling a snort with his jumper sleeve as he passed his mother doing complicated yoga on a flying carpet, and seized a barn owl in one arm, and a trunk handle and an overnight bag in the other. He slipped back upstairs as quickly as possible, trying desperately not to laugh at an upside down, one leg and one arm in the air mother.

"Here" said James, dumping the bag and trunk on the floor, and the owl next to his on the desk.

"Hey, Mouse, you have a friend here this week" he said kindly to his owl, sticking a finger through for her to nibble with her brown beak.

He threw a pair of socks at a still laughing Sirius, and hit him surprisingly hard, square on the nose. This didn't stop Sirius laughing; he merely threw them back harder, but only hit James on the arm.

"You're losing your touch, my friend." James said with a satisfied smirk, and collapsed down onto his bed, next to Sirius. "So, bringing anything new with you to Hogwarts this year?"

"As a matter of fact, yes" said Sirius, with a glint in his eye. He opened up his trunk, and pulled out a pocket sized book named "How to pass your OWLs without even trying" by Ronald Unlin.

James grinned at his friend "You'd better not let Remus see that, he would flip on you, maybe even Crucio you until you solemnly promise you'll burn it as soon as he lets go of the spell."

The two friends fell about laughing on the bed for 5 whole minutes, until James' mother came in and had them dangling from one leg with a curse until they stopped laughing, so she could take them down for dinner. The boys followed silently down into the dining room, carefully avoiding each other's gaze.

"Hello, Sirius!" said James' dad, who was taking off his coat. He'd obviously just got in from work.

"Hi Mr Potter" Replied Sirius cheerily. James' dad and Sirius had always got along well.

After 3 helpings of shepherd's pie each, the two boys raced back upstairs. It was now 8:30PM; they still had a while before they were sent to bed.

"So what should we do?" asked Sirius, prodding James' arm with his wand.

"Stop it Sirius that hurts!" he batted his wand away with his hand "I don't know, anything I guess. Hey, want to play chess?" he reached down under his bed and pulled out the magical moving chess set he owned. He and Sirius played until his mother came up and told them to get to bed. They didn't dare disobey, as they knew how quick she was to jinx, curse and hex.

"We're going to Diagon Alley tomorrow" James said as Sirius settled into a magical guest bed, belonging to James' mum. Sirius just nodded, and turned over in his bed to face the wall.

"Night"


	2. Chapter 2: Disaster in Diagon Alley

[Sorry I didn't post this sooner. I've been really busy. I started writing again a few days ago but it decided to delete itself -.-]

Sirius Black wasn't exactly what you would call an early riser. It took 3 buckets of ice-cold water and a hard shaking to get him to even open an eye. James actually had to tickle him until he woke up fully - Sirius was extremely ticklish- and that let to a violent tickle-fight between the two of them.

The were rolling around in a tumble of arms, legs, pillows and blankets and childish giggles for 5 minutes until James' mother barged in and had them hovering over the heap blankets for a time undetermined.

It was quite fun, just hovering there, James thought, but not knowing when his mum would drop them was not. When she finally did, they landed with a huge THUMP, barely missing each other by inches. Mrs Potter left to go back to bed, and Sirius punched James in the arm - hard. James punched back just as hard. They both doubled up in pain, but by taking one small glance at each other they collapsed into giggles once more.

They had to force themselves to calm down after hearing banging on the wall from, presumably, James' mother.

"Why'd you wake me up so early?" Sirius mumbled - his face was smothered by a pillow, he was using it to contain more laughter.

"Because," began James, from inside a blanket "We're going to Diagon Alley today"

"At 8 in the morning? Really, James?"

"Well I'm sorry for wanting to get to there early"

Sirius just rolled his eyes. He got to his feet and gave one last jab to his friend's side, causing James to jump abruptly and Sirius to snigger at the reaction.

"Should I owl Remus and Petey to meet us a Diagon Alley today?" asked Sirius as their two owls soared into the room - James had decided to let them out as they were making a racket through the night.

"Yeah, tell them to meet us at the Leaky Cauldron at 10 so we can go together" James replied as he dumped all the bedding back it to place - sort of. "And get dressed" he groaned at his friend, who happened to be in only bright yellow boxers.

"Why Jamsey, are you ashamed?"

"Yes"

James took a blow to the head by a pillow un-harmed and laughing. He was already dressed, he decided to get ready before waking Sirius up.

"Fine, but don't expect me to be quick about it" Sirius grunted.

Sirius sent off 2 letters to his friends, and after a long, exaggerated show of putting on underwear (James had turned around for this part, no matter how friendly they were, they weren't quite at that stage), jeans, socks, and an old top, they were ready to go.

During this long time, they received two owls, one each from Peter and Remus. Peter couldn't come, his parents were making him do the chores that he had neglected to do all summer. James shrugged.

"We'll see him at school"

They stuffed their wands in their back pockets, pulled on shoes, and set off out the house.

By 10am, the three friends were together in Diagon Alley, and had stopped off at Gringotts to fill their pockets with Gold and Silver.

"So, after I pay for this ice-cream, I should have approximately 14 Galleons left..." Remus thought out loud, earning a flick in the head by Sirius

"Relax, my dear friend, it's the holidays!" He said brightly, wincing at what was probably brain-freeze.

Remus stifled a snigger at Sirius' 'brain-freeze' expression. "We still need to buy our books."

"Oh, good point." James piped up "We'll go and get them after our ice-cream"

20 minutes and many spoonfuls of ice-cream later, they handed over the money and set off to Flourish and Blotts. They bought each book on their list, Remus bought an extra book called "OWLs: What they're really about" James and Sirius exchanged glances, both of them thinking back to Sirius' book: "How to pass your OWLs without even trying" they both grinned momentarily and looked away as quickly as possible.

"Hey, James, look over there." Sirius had nudged him in the ribs and pointed him in the direction of the door. A very pretty girl with dazzling red hair and bright green eyes entered the room with a skinny boy with greasy, black curtains of hair framing his face. The boy headed straight for the advanced potions section, though the girl decided to just stay put, looking at a few books opposite her.

James grinned, this was Lily Evans, the girl he had a huge crush on.

"Go get her, Jamsey!" said Sirius, followed by Remus giving him a push towards Lily.

James had a plan worked out in his head, he would absent-mindedly wander around the area she was in, then bump into her by 'accident'. So, naturally, after being pushed, he proceeded with his plan. Luckily for him, Lily hadn't budged, and was still looking at the books. He took great stress in looking at each and every book he walked past, then, reaching where Lily stood, he looked over his shoulder and began walking backwards, and right about when he should he bumped into her, she moved.

He fell onto the ground with a loud thud, and bumped into the bookshelf nearest, causing them all to fall on top of him. Sirius and Remus were creasing up with laugher, Lily had mixed emotions; disgust, and amusement, and was battling between them both. Severus, the greasy haired boy, was sniggering from where he stood, and the rest of the customers just stared. Lily had turned bright red, and stalked out of the shop, Severus following closely behind.

James apologized and was ushered out of the shop by his still-laughing friends.

"Well, you did well there mate!" Sirius said, failing to contain another burst of laughter.


End file.
